


there she lulled me asleep

by lockwoodstie (PilotInTheStars)



Category: Lockwood & Co. - Jonathan Stroud
Genre: Comfort, Conversations, Creative Liberty was taken for the nightmare, F/M, Fluff, If They Kiss More Maybe They'll Talk, Kisses, Major Character Death (In a Dream), Nightmares, Talking, brief angst, this is self indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:40:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23411062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PilotInTheStars/pseuds/lockwoodstie
Summary: Lockwood has a nightmare about a past case and a certain someone is there to help him through it.Set after the events of The Empty Grave.
Relationships: Lucy Carlyle & Anthony Lockwood, Lucy Carlyle/Anthony Lockwood
Comments: 18
Kudos: 75





	there she lulled me asleep

**Author's Note:**

> This has been my comfort the past two weeks or so and I hope you can find some comfort in it too. <3
> 
> A special thank you to @sharknana29 for their wonderful and insightful and supportive beta-ing, as always. And thank you to the Lockwood and Co. Discord as well for all of their support of this little fanfic writer. <3
> 
> There is a major character death, but only in a dream. 
> 
> Title comes from "La Belle Dame sans Merci" by John Keats because (flails hands) I HAD TO.

_And there she lullèd me asleep,  
And there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide!—  
The latest dream I ever dreamt  
On the cold hill side._

_I saw pale kings and princes too,  
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;  
They cried—‘La Belle Dame sans Merci  
Thee hath in thrall!’_

_I saw their starved lips in the gloam,  
With horrid warning gapèd wide,  
And I awoke and found me here,  
On the cold hill’s side._

\- La Belle Dame Sans Merci, John Keats

* * *

Tufnell’s theatre turned out to be much more extensive than Lockwood thought it would be. They all had to split up and go alone, perhaps not recommended in the Fittes Manual, but they’d be fine. He went through, recorded the temperature, checked the time on his watch. All typical situations for a haunting. 

He looked out on the empty audience, hands in his coat pockets. His rapier swung at his side.

The ghost- La Belle Dame sans Merci -was nowhere to be seen. She was out there in the theatre somewhere, perhaps wandering the stands or placing her fingers on the curtain, to pull it back and peek out at the audience.

Standing there in that empty theatre, without the rest of the company, he most certainly felt lonely. It bit away at him like a bitter cold- and it wasn’t just the beginnings of the hauntings that was getting to him. From where he stood, he could see all the different entrances and exits from the auditorium of Palace Theater. George, Holly, Quill, and Lucy (and the skull of course) were all on their own.

 _Lucy’s eyes had met his when they were all splitting up._ If you were to ask one shameful part of him, buried deep down, what he wanted, he would have happily changed the whole plan. 

He would have liked to have had Lucy by his side. Cases, whenever they were waiting around for an apparition to appear, always seemed to go faster with Lucy there. She made his heart flutter in all sorts of ways.

_Lucy._

Yesterday they had gone to the graveyard- the graveyard where his parents and sister were buried. Somehow their graves never changed after all that time. Cold and unchanging. Their names were forever etched on the stone. 

He had opened up to her about it all, about what happened. It felt in a way like a wound to the side but yet, he hadn’t bled out.

Lucy was by his side through it all. She always was. And yet again, he so desperately wished she was here now.

“Lockwood?”

He turned around quickly at the sound of the voice and saw Lucy standing there, wide-eyed and watching. _Luce._

“Lockwood, I’ve been looking all over for you.”

He took a step closer. They were all alone. But where had her rapier gone? And all of her supplies? Surely she didn’t just leave the skull lying around. He didn’t know, but despite the rational side of him questioning it all, something made him shake the thought away. 

“Is everything alright, Luce?”

She was still for a moment. “It is, now that you’re here. I’m glad I found you Lockwood.” She smiled at him and his heart fluttered a little. She extended a hand.

But something was yelling at him to stay frozen, stay still. 

Lucy was there, but everything was cold. That… that couldn’t be right. Lucy was warm, she was like a beam of sunshine pulling him onward. Where was that warmth now? Gone, nowhere to be found.

Against his will he took one step forward, then another. Something was pulling, drawing him closer, and he couldn’t even begin to explain what it was. She was still smiling, happy he was there. 

He was close, ever so close to Lucy… when Lucy changed. Her smile turned into something more sinister, something Lockwood had never seen before. Lucy, wonderful Lucy, seemed to melt away into the air of the theatre, like an actor taking off a mask, until nothing was left. 

She was there, in her dress that fell to the floor like running water, her eyes peering out from behind her lashes, eyes that spoke a thousand words. No, it wasn’t Lucy at all. 

How could he have been so stupid? How could he have let his guard down like that, when La Belle Dame had been breathing down all of their necks for the whole evening? He was supposed to be their leader, and here he was, mooning after a ghost. 

There wasn’t an escape now. Her steps were graceful and calculating and she drew him into his arms, her touch strong, both loving and like someone who wanted to do him harm. 

His limbs were numb but his heart was racing, his mind was screaming. He tried to free himself from her grasp, but she held him tight in her embrace. Cold rushed in like water from a broken pipe as the ghost-touch overwhelmed him. 

The rest of the company- Lucy -would find him broken and frozen lying on Tufnell’s stage. Anthony Lockwood, dead at last, had finally accomplished what the universe had been trying to do for so long. 

Everything went dark.

* * *

Lockwood jolted awake, his heart racing and adrenaline pumping. He sat up immediately, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. He looked down at the floor, at the legs of the new dark green pyjama pants he had just bought that week, the image of La Belle Dame, and of everything else, staring back into his soul. Her embrace was cold and even though she was gone now, he could feel her arms around him. 

The room was quiet. All he could hear was his blood rushing in his own ears. 

“Lockwood,” he heard behind him. “Lockwood, what’s wrong?”

He was quiet yet again. “Nightmare.” His hands rested on his knees as he tried to control his breathing. The mattress shifted as Lucy got up and crawled closer to him on the bed. She sat next him, her knees curled up under her. She kissed his shoulder gently.

Lockwood looked down at the floor, the image of La Belle Dame, and of everything else, staring back into his soul. La Belle Dame, pulling him into her cold, unforgiving embrace. She was cold and haunting and horrible- he had known that going into it. 

If only he hadn’t been a fool, letting his guard down. Letting his mournful and distracting thoughts get to him.

“It’s fine,” he said softly, and she kissed him gently, her fingers playing with the hair at the nape of his neck.

“Are you sure?” she asked. 

He didn’t answer for a moment and Lucy didn’t press. She placed her forehead on his shoulder, showing that she was there. If he wanted to speak about it, he would.

Lockwood continued to take deep breaths, forcing them to ground him. There was an urge in Lockwood’s heart. They bared their souls and thoughts open to each other in more ways than he could count, and something urged him. _Tell her._

“It was La Belle Dame,” he eventually said. Lucy froze for a moment, but moved her hand to his shoulder. “It was… like it was a year ago.”

There was silence for a long time. 

“Can I be honest with you, Luce?”

“You always can.”

Lockwood took her hand in his own, tracing everything about it in the moonlight- he studied the scars and the calluses on her palm. He kissed it softly and took a breath. 

“I’ve never fully told you about what happened that day.”

And in fact, if Lockwood had tried to stand there and think about it, he wasn’t entirely sure he would be able to remember everything- when the veil had been pulled over his eyes, so much had gone away. All he could remember was what his dreams had been able to tell him, and what small fragments from his memory that had remained. 

The nightmares were never completely true to what had happened. They acted like a key in a lock. Once the door was open, the real memories flooded in.

A few other moments stood out in his mind. Those were the moments after- after the Source had been sealed off and he was no longer drowning in ghost-lock.

Lucy, standing on the stage, crying before him, his cheeks still stinging from the slap she had given him. 

Holly, walking up to him and explaining everything afterwards. 

Everything was much clearer after that.

“When we are all on our own separate ways, investigating Tufnell’s theatre, she- La Belle Dame -found me.” He didn’t know how to continue, choosing instead to focus on Lucy’s thumb, tracing comforting circles above his shoulder blade. 

“Something came over me,” he said quietly. “I don’t know what it was.”

“I know,” she said. “It happens- happened to me too.” 

Lucy didn’t offer up any more information- perhaps due to her mind reeling as much as his was. He racked his brain, thinking.

 _Combe Carey Hall._ That was nearly three years ago now. An underground well and Lucy taking careful steps closer and closer to it flashed in his mind. The room had stayed practically silent for him- but the overwhelming psychic pressure he couldn’t forget. 

He kissed her cheek, reminding himself that she was there. She leaned into his touch.

_Can I be honest with you?_

_You always can._

He closed his eyes and took a breath.

“Back on that case, I thought it was you on that stage.” 

Lucy seemed somewhat unsurprised by his statement. She drew her knees up, scooting backwards on the bed. Lockwood went to join her. “I… I thought it was. Actually, Holly was the one who she thought saw me on the stage. And that’s when we ran to find you.” 

Lucy was quiet again, and she looked up to gaze through the window, and to look out onto Portland Row.

“I must have been under ghost-lock by then,” Lockwood said. 

“And despite everything, it’s just hard to fight it. Ghost-lock, I mean.” She gave him a soft, understanding smile and curled up closer to Lockwood, burying her nose in the curve between his neck and his shoulder. His arm went around her waist, pressing her tight to him. Both holding onto each other as if the other was an anchor in a dark and stormy sea.

“I was up there,” she continued quietly, “with all those carnival games. There was this… machine. A fortune teller.” She looked up at the ceiling and he wrapped his arms tighter around her. “I had a pound, so I put it in the machine.” She bit her lip and her eyes met his and she dropped her forehead to rest against his collarbone. “It said ‘He will go into the darkness for you..’”

They were quiet. 

“I’m sorry, Luce.”

“It’s alright. You… you didn’t. You’re here with me.” She gave him a smile. “But it did scare me in the moment. And then I saw George and La Belle Dame and then Holly. God, I was just so terrified. You were there… on the stage and I thought…” She shook it away.

Lucy reached out and ran her fingers through Lockwood’s hair, and was about to withdraw it when he caught it gently and raised it to his lips, kissing her knuckles. He saw her flush slightly, and she leaned forward to kiss him again, deeply, a reassurance that he was alive and well. Any death grip on him was gone and in the past. 

“I didn’t mean to frighten you on that day.”

“Well, you couldn’t help it.” She smiled at him and traced the collar of his pyjamas.

_It’s all in the past now._

“Holly told me about what you did.”

Lucy looked up and raised an eyebrow. 

“Swinging on the trapeze was a good move. I should have liked to have seen it.”

Lucy froze for a moment and then couldn’t help but give a laugh.

“I was just kind of… mad. It was all up in my head,” she said quietly.

“Mad? Why?”

In the light of the lamp, he could have sworn Lucy blushed for a moment. “I guess… it was just her.” She smiled sheepishly. “I know, it’s ridiculous.”

Lockwood shrugged, not wanting her to feel embarrassed. _He was still somewhat embarrassed over what he had done a year later._

They were both quiet for a moment.

“But you were about to get ghost-touched,” Lucy continued. “I couldn’t just sit there and let that happen.” She looked at him imploringly, her words strained.

Lockwood took her hands in his own. 

“And you swung on a trapeze down onto the stage to save me?”

“Yes.”

“And then set fire to Tufnell’s stage?”

“Yes.”

The demons in the room were banished for a minute and Lockwood couldn’t help but grin and pull her closer, pressing a kiss to her lips which she eagerly returned. He let go.

“I love you.”

Lucy grinned. “I love you too.”

“I do wish I could have seen that move, though.”

“Mm, well, I’m never doing it again. It was absolutely, utterly terrifying.”

“That’s a shame then.” Lockwood considered it all. “Though, I could easily see you setting fire to something else.”

Lucy raised a brow.

“After the house on Sheen Road and Tufnell’s stage…”

She gently pushed him away, a joke, but curled up to him again, wrapping her arms around him. He did the same. 35 Portland Row was still quiet, the rest of its occupants still fast asleep, except, of course, for Lucy and Lockwood. 

“Do you have lots of nightmares about her?”

Nightmares weren’t uncommon in the household, not by a long shot. Both Lucy and Lockwood knew that the other had them a rather frequent amount, at least, more than the average person likely did.

“Sometimes.” _He had nightmares about a lot of things._

He could only recall one or two other times he had had a dream about La Belle Dame sans Merci. Once a month or so after the case, another had been just a couple months before. And then, of course, just a few moments ago. 

“Do you ever have nightmares about that case?” It seemed like he was asking a rather intimate question, but if he had overstepped a line, she didn’t say. 

“Not particularly. Or at least, I can’t remember any. I dream about the Other Side, about the well…” Lucy paused momentarily. “And about Fittes… sometimes.” 

Lockwood remembered the moment when she had had that nightmare. He had found her in the kitchen and they had made tea and enjoyed each other’s company. If he were honest, he remembered it hazily, yet fondly. 

“Do you get them anymore? About her?”

“They happen. From time to time, but then they’re over. I’m glad I have you,” she said softly.

“I’m glad. I’m glad I have you too,” he said.

“And it helps,” Lucy said, “at least for me; when I get frightened by nightmares, to just remind myself that they’re gone. Fittes is. And _she_ is too.”

Lockwood didn’t need to be told who _she_ was.

It was all in the past indeed. Dwelling wasn’t necessarily bad, and sometimes the past crept in like an unsuspecting spirit, and then it was best to live and let go.

There was the present, sitting there with Luce, in bed, with the stillness of the house and the night surrounding them. 

And there was the future, with her, with the company too. 

Lucy sat as close to him as she possibly could, her legs swung over his lap. She kissed his cheek softly, lingering there for a moment, her nose pressed against his jaw.

“I’m here.”

“Thank you, Luce.”

She raised her hand and interlocked her fingers with his. “Thank you for being there for me,” she said.

Lucy gave a yawn and Lockwood looked at the alarm clock on the nightstand. It was quickly approaching two, and they were both needing sleep. Neither of them said anything, but fully understood each other.

“Are you alright now?” Lucy asked. 

Lockwood nodded and laid back in the bed and Lucy did the same, her arms around him and his arms around her. His lips were pressed against her forehead and their legs were tangled up together.

“I love you,” Lucy said quietly.

Lockwood brushed the hair from her eyes and kissed the tip of her nose. A silent declaration of the same thing to her.

he always fell asleep before he did; it always took him forever and ever, but her breathing, her in his arms, seemed almost like a lullaby all in itself. He let his own breathing calm him. In and out. In and out. Grounding him to this earthly world.

The ghost lamp was still flashing outside against the night. The street of Portland Row remained empty of both spirits and people. Lockwood looked around his room. The wallpaper, the paintings on the wall, the items on the dresser, and his wardrobe were all the same.

His heart felt better, Lucy at his side, having shared everything with her, and he was able to push La Belle Dame sans Merci out of his mind. At least, he was able to for now. 

_Most ghosts came back sooner or later in some way._

Lucy shifted in her dozing, curling even closer to him, breaking his train of thought. Her socked foot gently kicked him as she turned gently. 

Sleep was easier to find than he thought it would be. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed.
> 
> I hope you are also doing alright with all the crazy going on right now. I'm sending all the love your way. <3


End file.
